Malcolm Bmoor
Second Unit
Anyone surprised by the absence of someone other than Ms Sreisand having a solo number has much to learn about Ms Streisand.
You can read about material cut from FUNNY GIRL here: http://www.barbra-archives.com/films/funny_girl_movie_cut1.html There's no mention of an Anne Francis song, but there seems to have been at least a couple of attempts to give Omar Shariff a solo number.Ethan Riley said:I've always heard that Anne Francis had a solo number, but I know nothing more than that. I think it must have been cut before release.
Understand what your saying but I would think "It Only Takes A Moment" by Michael Crawford and "It Takes A Woman" by Walter Matthau were pretty much solo numbers in HELLO DOLLY. They did have a chorus behind them but the main body of the song was theirs.Malcolm Bmoor said:Anyone surprised by the absence of someone other than Ms Sreisand having a solo number has much to learn about Ms Streisand.
I think the reference was to Funny Girl and not Hello, Dolly. Irene Malloy has a solo number in Dolly! as well.Originally Posted by ahollis
Understand what your saying but I would think "It Only Takes A Moment" by Michael Crawford and "It Takes A Woman" by Walter Matthau were pretty much solo numbers in HELLO DOLLY. They did have a chorus behind them but the main body of the song was theirs.
You are right. I was kinda trying to get this back to HELLO DOLLY.MattH. said:I think the reference was to Funny Girl and not Hello, Dolly. Irene Malloy has a solo number in Dolly! as well.
The reason for the lack of solo numbers for anyone else was not Streisand's. Back when the show was written for Broadway, composer Jule Styne knew what he had in his lead actress (and remember, Streisand was NOT a star before Funny Girl). Styne, who was a vocal coach before becoming a major song writer, kept beefing up her part musically, which is why she had all the big songs. It didn't help that the male lead, Sydney Chaplin, had a very limited singing range. There was also no significant subplot to be established. It was about Fanny Brice; everything else was at best peripheral, and the score reflected that. Again, Streisand didn't dictate who got the songs in Funny Girl. If anyone made sure she had most of the songs, it was Jule Styne.Rob_Ray said:Ms. Streisand may have owned "Funny Girl" when it came to artistic choices for the film version, but even she could not dictate the solo numbers in "Hello Dolly!" which was one of the biggest hits Broadway had ever seen up to that time. And it would be hard to make "Dolly!" more a star vehicle than it already is.
That would be "It Takes a Woman."Brent Avery said:I enjoyed all of the musical numbers of course but for some reason the first song Walter Matthau "sings" early in the film sounded quite good when the group sang together with him. It was just one example of how it has benefitted from lossless audio.